


oh, simple things

by ohmygodwhy



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Asexual Jughead Jones, Character Study, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Gratuitous Horror Movie References, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Pining, Stream of Consciousness, aka how much can i project in 3000 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-09 17:59:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11674239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: no one in this goddamn town makes sense. archie’s hand curls around his wrist in the middle of the night, the two of them sprawled on archie’s bed, jughead’s backpack in the corner of the room because he’s afraid to unpack here, because he doesn’t want archie to see how little he owns at this point because his entire, tiny life is in that backpack. there’s barely anything there worth anything. he desperately wants to be worth something.





	oh, simple things

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title: it's so late and im such a sucker for broken families kill me!!  
> alternate alternate title: where is jellybean

 

the thing is that his dad used to prop him up on his shoulders and take him around the world—around the living room or sometimes the park, because that was jughead’s whole world. he would drive the truck to the drive-in and then hoist him and jellybean out of the trunk with this little conspiratorial grin on his face, like the whole thing was a secret only the family knew—plus archie, sometimes, the three of them huddled up and trying not to giggle, archie’s shoulder pressed against his and jellybean’s hand curled around his wrist. 

he and mom used to dance in the kitchen together when she cooked dinner—because fp has always been a shit cook, used to tell stories about the time he almost burned down his house cooking for mom on their second date, and fred had to rush over and put it out because he was the only one who knew how to deal with fires and they didn’t just pour water on it for some reason; they were stupid teens, fp used to laugh. the radio would be on in the background and they would sway together, something silly and fond and soft. 

jughead used to think that they were soulmates, his mom and dad. betty was the one who introduced him to the idea: two people destined to be together. 

he always wondered if there were friend-soulmates, too, because sometimes his dad would gaze at archie’s dad the way he would gaze at jughead’s mom. (it was because he loved him, he would figure out later, because sometimes feelings never went away, and you can love more than one person at once anyways.) 

the first time he watched wes craven’s _new nightmare_ , he was eight, jellybean curled into his side in the back of the truck at the drive-in, classic horror night. it was about the nightmare on elm street guy coming out of the movies and into the real world, and there was this whole meta thing where the actress from the original nightmare on elm street movies played herself, and wes craven played himself, too, which jughead thought was a really cool concept and also very confusing to an eight year old. 

he’d only seen the first of the series before that, and he fell asleep halfway through, but he remembers his dad chuckling a little when he’d leaned so far forwards during the whole hospital scene that he almost fell out of the truck, wrapping an arm around his waist to pull him back up. 

later, he’ll wonder why his parents thought it was a good idea to take their kids to watch sometimes bloody horror movies every other weekend, and if that somehow impacted the way he thinks about the world, but at the time he loved it (still loves it). he liked it more than the normal drive-in nights, because the audience responded more as a whole. it was fun to hear everyone gasp at the same time, and then laugh at themselves for gasping. 

archie usually avoided those nights, because he wasn’t a fan of horror and refused to eat corn for a week after watching _children of the corn_ for the first time, hated werewolf movies with a passion even though he loved dogs. jughead never teased him about it, because jughead didn’t like those e.r./hospital shows on the health channel because they made him paranoid about how many ways he could get sick and die. it was a mutual respect for each other’s fears thing, and also an i won’t tell anyone if you don’t thing. 

 

the thing is that his dad never got on his case about wanting to read instead of go play soccer or talking about stories he made up instead of girls. he would get this look on his face, shake his head with a fond smile. you’re a smart cookie, jug, you’ll make it big someday he would say, and ruffle his hair, and his mom would lean over and ask him a few more questions and smile all nice and encouraging. 

jellybean liked to play dress up. let’s be them, she would say about their favorite superheroes or princesses or horror movie monsters. sometimes she would make up her own characters, parade around as someone else. whenever it was a medieval theme, jughead was either the king or the princess, depending on the situation, because of the hat his mom got him when he was six and went through a phase that winter where he hated his head getting cold and refused to step outside without protection. 

and this one time, she’d dressed their dad up like a knight, with a big metal bowl as his helmet and a stick they found at the park as his sword, and he pretended to fight off a giant—not a dragon, because jellybean loved those—and save their mom from the kitchen table where she was pouring over taxes with that pinched look on her face that meant she was stressed. 

she had laughed, and he had laughed, and it had been a good day for all of them. that was the last time he ever joined in their game, and a year or two later he said that jughead was too old for that, don’t you think? you’re a king, not a princess. his mom had said: let him have fun, will you? he’s just a kid. his dad had rolled his eyes but dropped the subject, and that was one of the first cracks that jughead had seen. 

mom got a job because his dad lost his job, something about the economy and market crashes and things jughead didn’t pretend to understand, and then he got another job and lost his job and that was a cycle that went on for a while. money was tight—and they weren’t all that rich in the first place, had enough to live comfortably enough; sometimes they stopped buying things like snacks for lunch or new clothes, jackets a little too small and shoes falling apart, so they could keep the heat going in the winter, but that was fine. they’d barely ever paid fully for the drive-in, so that was still an escape they had. 

 

when he’s ten, last year of elementary school, he finds some matches on the floor in the hallway, god knows who brought them to school and then lost them. he was curious, brought them to the bathroom with him during recess and shut himself in a stall and practiced lighting them, watched the flame lick at the wood and dropped them into the toilet to watch them fizzle out. he thought it was pretty; the fire looked like it was breathing, the way it moved. he didn’t try to touch it because he wasn’t stupid, he knew fire was hot, but he held it close enough to his face that he could feel the heat on the tip of his nose. 

a teacher had caught him at it, a lit match in his hand. he’d been so surprised that he’d dropped it; it had hit the roll of toilet paper on its way down, caught fire because he’s always had horrible luck. it had set off the fire alarms and the police had been called and jughead got sent to a damn juvenile delinquent center for trying to ‘burn down the school’. he’d always been a trouble maker, anyways, inherited his dad’s smart mouth and his mom’s wit, never knew when to shut the hell up, read enough books to have a very extensive vocabulary for a ten year old. 

plus, he’d heard a teacher murmuring, fp jones was his father, who knows what he’d been teaching the boy. 

he thinks his dad had been angrier about it than jughead was. he’d said to him: people like us, we always get screwed over. don’t let them walk all over you, kid. they’re full of shit, never forget that, you hear me? 

reggie mantle had asked if he was an arsonist, now, and if he could burn down the middle school so that none of them had to go next year, because there was a time where he and reggie were actually pretty good friends, before school became about survival and food chains. jughead had said no, and that he’d try, but no promises, because he didn’t wanna go to jail for the rest of his life. 

it had sounded like a joke, but he was serious. he knew that things like this could happen, now. misunderstanding could have more consequences than a detention or a friend not talking to you for a week. get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and your life could be ruined. 

jughead never played with matches again, and when he did shit that could get him in trouble, he tried not to get caught. 

 

the thing is that his dad used to hike him up on his shoulders and carry him around the world. built him a treehouse so he could see it all from above like some explorer, destined for greatness, a king to match the crown he wore.

life is more like a wes craven movie than any romantic comedy he’s seen. nightmares can come to life and misunderstanding are more than funny plot devices that push the love interests further together. things start being not good, staring turning bad. his parents argue about money, hushed conversations in the kitchen they think he can’t hear but he does anyways because he’s always been nosy by nature, sitting at the top of the staircase with his knees pulled to his chest and listening as best he can. 

last year of middle school, betty always whispers to him about how much she wishes archie would ask her out like they do in the movies, like kids at school have started doing. he never understood the appeal when he was younger and still doesn’t really understand the appeal now, but he does agree that archie’s eyes are a very nice color and he wouldn’t be opposed to holding his hand, pressing up against him like they used to do in the back of the truck, but he doesn’t tell betty that because his scripted part is the best friend, not the love interest. that’s betty’s job, and he doesn’t know what would happen if he screwed it all up, so he just doesn’t.

last year of middle school and he’s taking jellybean out to the movies or pop’s or the park or sometimes archie’s almost every night because their parents don’t even try to hide their arguments sometimes, yelling at each other in the kitchen or the hallway or the living room, the tv in the background only adding to the noise. 

jellybean didn’t deserve to hear that, so he didn’t let her, would leave his door cracked open so she could slip in and huddle up next to him. he would cover her ears against the muffled yelling downstairs and tell her stories to drown it out. her favorite thing in the world at the moment was star wars—she had this huge crush on princess leia that she would get all defensive about if you brought it up, so he would talk about that and about space and all the things that could be out there, about visiting new york someday because they’ve always wanted to see a real broadway show. 

she would fall asleep like that, and he would wake up the next morning with a godawful crick in his neck and a headache to match from sleeping propped up against the wall behind his bed, but that was fine. 

they lose the house soon after, move into a trailer his dad used to live in after high school or something, before he got a solid job and married mom. 

the day before mom takes jellybean and doesn’t look back, things crack for good. it’s not an even break. 

he’s drunk, obviously, and they’re arguing of course, a school play that jellybean starred in and he’d shown up halfway through smelling like the back end of a bar. he’d missed her big solo. jughead had taped it, of course, but it wasn’t the same. looking back, he doesn’t think that any of them were surprised, his mom least of all. she’d looked so sad, and so angry. 

he’s taller than her and when he gets drunk he gets loud, loud enough that jellybean flinches every time he speaks, and when he gets loud mom gets loud, too, trying to get a word in over his shitty excuses, tell him he’s tearing this family apart, why are you never here for our kids, why are you never here for me. 

he steps forwards and raises a drunken hand and jughead steps in front of his mom. his dad freezes, hand outstretched, and then he's down, just falls to his knees like a man in prayer.  he apologizes over and over again, shocked out of his stupor by the fact that he almost hurt someone. jughead has heard stories about his teenage days, a gang that’s still around, but he’s never seen him like this.

he takes the money his mom hands him and slips jellybean out of the room, takes her to that new race car movie she wants to see. she holds his hand tight enough that it stops shaking. 

the next morning, his mom grabs jellybean before the sun comes up, packs as much as she can into two or three suitcases, and leaves. she presses a kiss to his forehead, something he only barely registers, half-asleep and bleary. 

she’s in toledo before his dad wakes up. 

the thing is that she didn’t even ask jughead if he wanted to come. 

the trailer, as small as it is, feels very empty without them. 

 

his dad hits him with a bottle once, a beer bottle—by accident, of course, he just threw the bottle at the wall a little too close to him, drunk and loose, and it had shattered and cut into his arm where he’d thrown it up to protect his face, a shard scraping against his cheek where he wasn’t fast enough. he’d felt the sticky blood run down his face and drip from his chin and it stung, stung but didn’t sting as much as the heat burning behind his eyes, the salt that made contact with the cut, reflexive, purely from the unexpected pain and nothing else. 

it wasn’t even that bad, honestly—his dad had snapped out of it immediately when jughead hit the wall, rushed over, flinched back when jughead flinched back. he’d called one of his friends to help clean up the cuts because god knows he couldn’t do it himself with his shaky hands. she has to stitch up the one on his forearm, but that’s okay, that’s fine. jughead sits in silence as she works, hands gentle and steady and nothing like his father’s. 

after she leaves, jughead stands and digs up his mom’s old camping bag and packs up everything he thinks he’ll need—school supplies, his toothbrush, his favorite books, his laptop, some clothes, anything else he thinks to grab, like he’s on autopilot, body moving first and mind catching up to it moments later. he grabs his phone and stuffs it in his back pocket. just barely remembers his headphones. 

his dad begs him not to go—i’m sorry, i didn’t mean it, it was an accident, where are you gonna sleep? he asks, and jughead tells him that he actually has a job so he makes his own minimum wage money and the place where he works has a room he can probably rent out, he can feed himself, he’s been doing it for years, he’ll be fine. 

it won’t make a difference to you, either way, he says. you do your shit, come home, pass out, i’m not part of that routine, you won’t even notice that i’m gone. 

he flinches back hard enough when his dad tries to touch him that his dad looks like he burned his hand, pulling back in a daze. he’s drunk enough that his movements are sloppy, sober enough to apologize, to know that he cannot fix this. 

jughead leaves, bruise around his eye from a few days ago, when he’d said that he had a job, _and_ school _and_ managed to get good grades and his dad didn’t do shit, and a stitched up forearm. he thinks about looking back, but decidesthat he doesn’t wanna see his dad slumped against the trailer door, because he’s afraid he might go back to comfort him if he does. 

 

the drive-in is stuffy in the summertime, heat packing into the little box of a room like it’s some kind of oven, trying to roast him alive. he sleeps with the door cracked open during the night. keeps a pocket knife under his pillow because the serpents who hang around here never bother him, but they’re not the only dangerous people out there, and no matter how shit his dad’s advice is, he knows not to let himself get killed in his sleep. 

people like us, his dad had said once, we gotta look out for ourselves. no one else is gonna do it. 

it’s not bad. it’s actually pretty nice. he gets paid. took the little coffee maker his mom had left behind for days when he doesn’t have money to buy any at pop’s—he spends most of his summer there, in his favorite booth, and even though pop gives him pretty much endless refills after he buys a cup, sometimes he needs the money for other things. like clothes, or food that’ll keep for longer than a week. 

there are these little soup cans with lids like a can of soda, which is good for him because he doesn’t have a goddamn can opener, and they’re cheap as shit, which is a plus, and also taste fine cold, which is even more of a plus. he buys a new charger for his laptop, and his phone is old as shit but it still works—he hasn’t texted much lately because archie isn’t talking to him for god knows why, but that’s okay because it’s enough work figuring out how to live on his own with a minimum wage salary, so he’s glad for the lack of distraction. no one’s there to ask questions he doesn’t wanna answer, so he doesn’t have to answer any. 

that’s fine. good, even. makes things easier for everyone. 

 

the thing is that a kid is dead and his dad threw a bottle at him and the new music teacher is a fucking creep who sexually abuses her students and jughead gets taken down to the station for questioning because they think that poverty and playing with matches and a shitty dad and being the subject of years of bullying makes someone a murderer. 

no one in this goddamn town makes sense. archie’s hand curls around his wrist in the middle of the night, the two of them sprawled on archie’s bed, jughead’s backpack in the corner of the room because he’s afraid to unpack here, because he doesn’t want archie to see how little he owns at this point because his entire, tiny life is in that backpack. there’s barely anything there worth anything. he desperately wants to be worth something. 

his dad is trying to get his shit together and jughead is terrified. he’s afraid that he won’t and he’s afraid that he will. he’s so tired of being afraid. 

he thinks he might want to kiss archie but he doesn’t know. he remembers his dad gazing at fred like he was the only thing in the room, and wonders if it’s a jones family curse or something; he wonders if that’s the way he looks at archie, and wonders if everyone can see it. can see right through him. 

the thing is that his dad used to carry him around the world and now jughead doesn’t know if he even wants to see what the rest of the world looks like, dads shoot their sons in the head and that’s not the story he set out to write but that’s what it’s become. 

he asks his dad what the world looks like from the inside of a jail cell, and his dad says it looks bigger and scarier than it’s ever looked before. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> school starts again soon comment to give me the strength to keep going


End file.
